THE SHUDRAS : THE RIDDLE OF THE SHUDRAS 27
III
These are the real reasons why the Purusha Sukta is unique. But the Purusha Sukta is not merely unique, it is also extraordinary. It is extraordinary because it is so full of riddles. Few seem to be aware of these riddles. But anyone who cares to inquire will learn how real in their nature and how strange in their complexion these riddles are. The cosmogony set out in the Purusha Sukta is not the only cosmogony one comes across in the Rig Veda. There is another cosmogony which is expounded in the 72nd Hymn of the Tenth Mandala of the Rig Veda. It reads as follows : [1]
“1. Let us proclaim with a clear voice of the generation of the gods (the divine company), who, when their praises are recited, look (favourably on the worshipper) in this latter age.
Brahmanaspati filled these (generations of the gods) with breath as a blacksmith (his bellows); in the first age of the gods the existent was born of the non-existent.
In the first age of the gods the existent was born of the nonexistent; after that the quarters (of the horizon) were born, and after them the upward-growing (trees).
The earth was born from the upward growing (tree), the quarters were born from the earth; Daksha was born from Aditi and afterwards Aditi from Daksha.
Aditi, who was thy daughter, Daksha, was born; after her, the gods were born, adorable, freed from the bonds of death.
When, gods, you abode in this pool well-arranged, then a pungent dust went forth from you as if you were dancing.
When, gods, you filled the worlds (with your radiance) as clouds (fill the earth with rain) then you brought fourth the sun hidden in the ocean.
Eight sons (there were) of Aditi who were born from her body; she approached the gods with seven, she sent forth Martanda on high.
With seven sons Aditi went to a former generation, but she bore Martanda for the birth and death (of human beings).
The two cosmologies are fundamentally different in principle as well as in detail. The former explains creation ex nihilo ‘being was born of non-being’. The latter ascribes creation to a being which it calls Purusha. Why in one and the same book two such opposite cosmologies should have come to be propounded? Why did the author of the Purusha Sukta think it necessary to posit a Purusha and make all creation emanate from him?
Any one who reads the Purusha Sukta will find that it starts with the creation of donkyes, horses, goats, etc., but does not say anything
1 Wilson’s, Rig Veda, Vol. VI, p. 129